Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1887-02-21
SPLENDID TEMPLES OF TRADE
Ihe''BOom" In Stately Mansions and
Magnificent Business Houses

inc building "bO0m," which began III
New York last year, continues unaoated.
Multitudes OF stately French fats, beau
tiful mansions and magnificent business
palaces are being erected. In New YORK
the business structures attain greater
nelRht than anywhere else in the Worlo.
Some are $50 feet to the roof, and others
226 feet to the top Of the towers which
surmount them; 100 feet is much higher
tnan the ordinary church steeple,
and 225 feet is higher than any IN the
United States, with the exception of, per-
maps, score OF sacred edihces. Inc
Produce Exchange tower or campanile
looms 225 feet above ancient Bowling
Green, and that On the Western Union
building, on higher ground, seems TO
reach nearly the same altitude. me
new Petroleum Exchange, to be finished
next, will cost 100000, and will be
much finer building than the
STOCK Exchange, a dark, gloomy ana
lncommodious structure, gilded folly,
on which hundreds of thousands have
been wasted. Another superb structure
is being erected IN Alrich court,on Broad
way, just opposite Exchange place. New
ork has few of these rather quaint
courts, which suggest old London. Every
resource is exhausted in the construc-
tion of these palatial business buildings;
their foundations are laid forty feet be-
low the level of the street and the ma
sorry is AS solid as that of an old Roman
aqueduct. Where the soil seems to be
yielding piles are driven down. They
are from thirty to forty feet in length,
being the trunks Of trees brought from
New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The
Produce Exchange rests on 10, 437 OF these
trees, so that the brokers are trading on
tn Re top of an old forest. In these fine
structures there are usually two COM
pleted stories below the street, and above
this rise eight or ten stories more.
Rents are enormous; the buildings pay
from to per cent, and in one case at
at least, l understand, 10 per cent. on
the money invested. The well-knOwn
Mills building on Broad street, cost
81, 100000. Thirteen buildings were torn
down to secure it's site. 1t was erected
by ID. o. Mills, once a hack driver and
now worth 100000 The total amount
of rent derived from this magnificent
building approXimates 100000 a year.
Here are the offices of G. p. Huntington,
ID. o. Mills and other California and
transcontinental magnates, as well as
such bankers and brokers as the SelIg-
mans, Henry Clews, President James
Smith, of the Stock Exchange; the Kis-
sans, brothers of Mrs. William I'll. Van
derbilt, and others. Henry Clews, | be-
lieVe, pays $Sa square foot for his splen-
did Offices, the finest and most elegantly
fitted up of any broker of stocks or grain
IN the metropolis and which cost him
about $4,000 year. This enormous rent
does not seem large to man who made
81, 900, 900 last year.
The halls in some of these commercial
palaces are as wide as some of the streets
of Boston or old Italian cities, and the
stairs could accommodate twenty men
abreast. In some OF the larger structures
there are six or eight elevators constant
ly ascending understanding, and glance
downward seems like looking into the
bottomless pit. The Produce Exchange
has ten OF these elevators, large, well
tested and secure from accident. Until
1868 there was not single really tall
commercial building in New York; four
or five stories, and occasionally six, were
as high as 1t would pay to build. The
upper stories even then were almost USE
less, as few cared TO climb so high. The
introduction of elevators changed all
this, and the upper stories are preferred
by many by reason of the better
light and ventilation and sometimes De-
cause of the magnificent view. The Post
Building on Beaver street and Cyrus W.
Fields Washington building, facing the
Battery, give particularly fine views.
buildings Ia that of a well-known life IN
surance company on Broadway, near
Cedar street, which originally cost $4,000,-
600, and recent extension costing an-
other million. The signal service corps
here occupies tower on the roof, and the
janitor has another, and his children
have play ground an acre in extent 125
feet above roaring Broadway. The COM
pany provides for its tenants law library
8 = ha Ina
and Down Town Law Club have their
rooms there. The President OF the COM
pany, by the way, receives a salary of
$37, 900 year.
The Produce Exchange has great hall,
215 feet long by 134 wide, where the
brokers assemble. The building itself
covers an acre and half and the rooms
not devoted to public trading and official
business pay total yearly rent of
$250,000. On Well and Nassau
streets are several buildings which
more expensive style than those already
mentioned, although they are not so
large. Still, each cost about a million
dollars, and for architectural beauty
would probably outshine any other BUSH
ness structures in the world. A Michael
Angelo must have surveyed such superb
temples Of trade with interest. The
building OF well known insurance COM
pany on Nassau street is particularly
notable for its architectural and artistic
splendor; the marble halls are wains-
coted with marble; the principal rooms
are finished in mahogany. The Cham
Der of Commerce has its rooms there,
with picture gallery Of more than sixty
merchants, dating back to the days Of the
colonial government; some of the more
ancient business worthless wear the small
clothes, embroidered waistcoats, and the
neckcloth OF the quaint old days of New
York. when such splendid business
structures as this would have appeared
sheer madness. Two of these portraits
are OF Alexander Hamilton and John Sher-
man, former Secretaries of the Treasury.
In this building, by the way, eX-President
Arthur had fine offices, and next to him
in the last Presidential campaign Gen.
Benjamin f. Butler had his quarters.
Another fine structure is the United
Bank Building, at the corner OF Wall
street and Broadway, where Gen. Grant
meut of this building that Ferdinand
Ward concocted his gigantic and now
historic swindles, an asp singing great
soldier to death. On one of the upper
floors the peerless Roscoe Consling has
his Offices, and on the seventh floor is the
new financial power, Alfred Sully, keen,
quick and scholarly. Further up Broad
way is the great Western Union building,
with it's unsightly mansard root, and in
one of its offices sits Jay Gould, the Sat
urn of finance, quiet as stone. In Wall
street, not far from Broad street, is the